By all accounts a normal day, this May 17th in 1988. There was a dramatic decline in the Trade deficit and stock markets throughout Europe broke out in waves of giddy. Even our own Stock Market rose 10 points over the news. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, debate was girding its overblown loins for ratification of the INF Treaty and Conservative Republicans were threatening fits and tirades. Edwin Meese fired spokesman Terry Eastland and circles in the State Department thought it was Meese who needed to be fired.
Since it was election year, news was crowded with the horse race known as Primaries and the one in Oregon had Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson sprinting to the wire. A recently released CBS/New York Times Poll had George Bush trailing Michael Dukakis by 10 points if the election were held on that particular Tuesday.
On the world front - The Honduran Ambassador was arrested on Cocaine possession charges. South African Bishop Desmond Tutu called for an Isolation Campaign against the apartheid government of South Africa. Pope John Paul II was on a 12 day Latin American visit and exchanged finger wagging on Human Rights violations with Paraguayan Strongman General Alfredo Stroessner, whose miserable record of Human Rights earned the ire of the Vatican and whose Papal criticism earned the ire of Stroessner.
And it was the 1-year anniversary of the bombing of the USS Stark by an Iraqi jet.
Not thrill-packed, but dramatic nonetheless. Here is the CBS World News Roundup for May 17,1988 (A Tuesday).
